Clinical trial · Interventional
Behavioral Nudges to Improve Palliative Care Utilization in Advanced Cancer
- Source
- ClinicalTrials.gov
- Retrieved
- Sep 8, 2026
- Layer
- normalized (units and labels harmonized; values unchanged)
- Run
- ING-CLINICALTRIALS-20260908-000001
Summary
Brief summary (as posted)
Patients with cancer often undergo costly therapy and acute care utilization that is discordant with their wishes, particularly at the end of life. Despite early palliative care consultations being a National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) guideline-concordant practice in advanced cancer, palliative care referral rates for stage IV patients are low. In this project, the investigators will evaluate a health system initiative that uses behavioral nudges to prompt palliative care referrals among outpatients with advanced cancer in terms of successful palliative care referrals and downstream quality of life outcomes. In partnership with the health system, this will be conducted as a 2-arm pragmatic cluster randomized trial.
Conditions
Conditions (1)
Free-text conditions as registered, with the CancerIndex entity they were reconciled to and the match type.
| Condition (as posted) | Mapped entity | Match | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cancer | Malignant Neoplasm | ALIAS | 0.90 |
Interventions
Interventions (1)
| Intervention | Type | Mapped drug | Match |
|---|---|---|---|
| Default Nudge | Other | — | UNRESOLVED |
Design
Arms and outcomes
Arms (2)
- type
- NO_INTERVENTION
- label
- Control
- description
- Clinicians will receive no further interventions beyond usual practice.
- type
- EXPERIMENTAL
- label
- Intervention
- description
- Clinicians receive a nudge consisting of an electronic health record in-basket message indicating a patient has a default pended order for palliative care.
- interventionNames
- Other: Default Nudge
Primary outcomes (1)
- measure
- Completion of Palliative Care Visit
- timeFrame
- Within 12 weeks of the Index Visit
- description
- Binary outcome (yes/no) measured at the patient level among eligible patients based on the date of documented palliative care encounter
Eligibility
Eligibility (as posted)
- Sex
- All
- Minimum age
- 18 Years
Show eligibility criteria text
Inclusion Criteria: * Have a functional telephone number * Receive ongoing care from hematology/oncology services within the Ann B. Barshinger Cancer Institute (ABBCI) at Lancaster General Health. Exclusion Criteria: * Patients appearing for a new patient visit * Patients who have previously received palliative care * Patients who are enrolled in an ongoing clinical trial of a therapeutic agent * Patients who receive primary oncologic care within another institution
References
Publications (1)
- DERIVEDParikh RB, Sedhom R, Ferrell WJ, Villarin K, Berwanger K, Scarborough B, Oyer R, Kumar P, Ganta N, Sivendran S, Chen J, Volpp KG, Bekelman JE. Behavioural economic interventions to embed palliative care in community oncology (BE-EPIC): study protocol for the BE-EPIC randomised controlled trial. BMJ Open. 2023 Mar 24;13(3):e069468. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2022-069468. PMID 36963789